Der Panther
by Sakiku
Summary: An old man is looking back on his life, wondering why he has survived until now. Inspired by a poem by Rilke with the same title. Warnings: Might want to keep kleenex handy


**A/N:**

Another short story, inspired by a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke. I found the English translation on the net, so not mine. GW's not mine, either, so, please, no law-suits or similar stuff. Oh, and sorry for the formatting. didn't want to have the lyrics centered.

* * *

**Der Panther**

„Mr. Chang?"

He has survived them. Survived them all. Yuy, Maxwell, Merquise, Barton, Winner. Une. Lived longer than every one of them. Especially Peacecraft. She had been assassinated nearly thirty years ago. Did not survive the emergency surgery. And they all had followed her, one way or another.

„It's time to get up, Mr. Chang."

Even his wife, Sally, three years ago. He had not been able to hold her dying body in his arms, like he had done with Meiran. He had not been able to do anything. In the morning, she had gone to work, but she has never come back. Drunken driver. Killed on impact. They had cleaned her body up so that he could identify her. She had looked as if she had merely been asleep. Unnaturally still and pale.

„How would you like your tea, Mr. Chang?"

Sometimes, he still expects her voice to call out to him, asking him if he wants milk with his tea.

** Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehn der Stäbe**

_ His gaze, going past those bars, has got so misted  
_

Of course, he had never had milk with his tea, but she had asked nonetheless. Somehow, it had turned into a ritual with them, a comfortable idiosyncrasy that had helped him ground himself when an especially vivid nightmare had sent his heartbeat racing and had awoken him with terror. She had always got up then and made tea, giving him time to compose himself before she came in again with two mugs of a hot, spicy brew. Without milk.

"Your usual with a spoon of sugar and lots of milk, Mr. Chang?"

The bitter taste of strong black tea had grounded him in reality, a reality that was much more bitter than the drink. Sally had always asked about his dream, and once or twice, he had actually told her. Of course, the worst ones, he had kept to himself, still too raw to relive those memories. She had never pressed the matter, sipping contently her cup of tea next to him, never saying a word when his trembling hands made the teacup rattle against his teeth.

"Now, Mr. Chang, I'll help you sit up, and then you can have your tea."

At first, he had thought his hands had been trembling from the remembered horror visions, but the tremors had gradually been carried over into his waking hours. He surmises that he had known for a lot longer than he wanted to admit. When Sally had finally dragged him to a doctor ('No, woman, I don't need a doctor to tell me what you can!' – 'Wufei, I am a surgeon, and surgeons don't know much more than when and where to cut!' – 'Oh, but I know some things you know quite well…' – 'Quit it, Wufei, this is serious!' – 'So am I…'), he had not been too surprised at the result.

His muscles had become unnaturally stiff in the last few years; his formerly graceful sword forms had degenerated into a mockery thereof as the smooth, graceful power eluded him more and more. It had been an unnatural progress because he clearly remembered the elders on his L5-colony, who had practiced their art daily with far less problems than he was having. And he had barely cleared the half-century-mark.

The diagnosis had not been unexpected as he had done some reading ahead of time. Nonetheless, it had been a painful one, being told that he will never become better again. From then on, it had only gone downhill.

** So müd geworden, dass er nichts mehr hält**

_ with tiredness, it can take in nothing more.  
_

"Here you are, Mr. Chang. Do you want anything special for breakfast?"

The tea cup in his hands is warm, but the warmth stops halfway to the rim. Recently, he has been shaking so badly that with a cup any fuller, the liquid would slosh over the rim. If they could see him now… But they are all dead. Nobody left to visit him.

His daughters Mei Lan and Liang Zhu are both married with children of their own, coming once or twice a year. But he can see it in their behaviour how much of a chore it is for them, especially for his grandchildren. Visiting a trembling, twitching, helpless old man they barely know. Actually, he can understand them.

** Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe**

_ He feels as though a thousand bars existed,  
_

He had thought so himself, back in the war, afterwards during their marriage, and even now to a degree. If it hadn't been for Sally, he would have asked Quatre or Trowa a long time ago to…

When he had been diagnosed, Mei Lan and Liang Zhu had already been in their thirties, having lead their own lives for years. They would have been sad, but they would have quickly gotten over it. It had been for Sally that he had held on, had said nothing.

The worst thing was that she would have understood such a decision, maybe even helped him. She certainly had the knowledge. But it would have broken her, broken her all the way, something not even the last, difficult years before her death had managed.

The tea in his hands is becoming cooler, and he still hasn't tried it. He is sure that it is going to taste as sweet and bland as it always does. He does not need to taste it to know that. But he needs the liquid. A scolding glance from the nurse, and he shakily lifts it to his lips.

Swallowing hurts, stiff muscles in neck and throat making every graceless slurp a painful reminder of what he has become. Even the rattling of his teeth against the teacup is not what it has once been because the flat sound of plastic smacking against plastic hardly lends itself to musical qualities.

** Und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt**

_ and no more world beyond them than before._

His death would have broken Sally because all those who could have understood them were already dead except for Quatre and Trowa. However; they had followed not too late afterwards.

But all of them had been living on borrowed time, anyways. They had never expected to survive the war, and they had been perplexed by the fact that they had been granted the chance to see another day, and afterwards another one. Being able to decide for themselves what they wanted to do with those days they had never hoped to experience had stunned them into a mental paralysis.

It had been hard, incredibly hard work to manage those days, one by one. But eventually, next day had turned into next week and next month. Eventually, they had found a new purpose, a reason to face next week or next month.

For him, it had been Sally, and later on their two daughters. For Quatre, it had been Winner Enterprises, the Manguanacs, and his sisters. In that order. Quatre had thrown himself into his work like a starving man, doing 12, 14 hours a day. Perhaps that had been his way of coping with the war, the guilt of killing so many.

Heero and Duo had entered Preventers, had made it their task in life to prevent another war like the one they had suffered through. And last but not least: Trowa. He had found refuge in the circus he had already travelled with during the war.

_** Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte**_

___ Those supply powerful paddings, turning there  
_

Merquise and Peacecraft were another matter entirely. Merquise had retreated to Mars to lick his wounds, but a few years into the new peace reign, he'd had an unfortunate 'accident' that had been fatal. Heero and Duo had been sent there to investigate, resulting in a rather lengthy hospital stay for both of them. But they had thoroughly discouraged all attempts of the Marsian underground of starting another war.

For nearly two decades afterwards, it had been quiet on the red planet. And then, almost without warning, the assassination of Vice Foreign Minister Peacecraft.

"Here you go, Mr. Chang, your breakfast. I've brought some more tea for you and your pills. I'll go now and see to the others, and when I come back in an hour, I expect at least the eggs to be gone! You have to eat more, Mr. Chang, so that you stay fit and healthy."

Relena Peacecraft had been assassinated by a mad dog sent by the Marsian Liberation Fraction, short MLF, and the endless waltz of history had almost repeated itself. Details had been frighteningly similar to the assignation of Heero Yuy, but Preventers had managed to keep those first sprouts of revolution under control.

_** Der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht**_

___ in tiniest of circles, well might be  
_

They had not repeated the mistake of the Alliance who had ruthlessly suppressed all resistance, and so the beat of revolution had been staved off.

Heero and Duo had had the most dangerous part in this. They had been sent undercover on Mars to sniff out potential disaster zone, hotheads, fanatics, and report them to Preventers. As none of them had had a family, they had been sent there for years, a long-term assignment that had required a complete change of identity.

During that time, Sally and him had sent their first daughter Mei Lan to college, and Liang Zhu to High School. The short and precise e-mails from 'Odin Lowe' had been as welcome as the lengthier and wordier ones of 'Mad Max', the information hidden by codewords and certain phrases so numerous that they knew almost more about the situation than Preventers, who 'Odin's' and Max's official reports went to. For that reason, they had sometimes been consulted as 'special agents' although they had been retired from active duty ever since Mei Lan's birth.

The fork in his hands feels almost as strange as it did two years ago when he had his first meal in this place. But gradually, he has learned to adapt, adjusting his eating habits accordingly. Why they have never offered him chopsticks, he doesn't know. Don't they have any?

For all his life he had never used Western cutlery. So on the day with the phone call, he had neatly put his chopsticks down and pushed his bowl aside before taking the call. He had never finished his dinner that day. At least, he didn't think he had.

_** Ist wie der Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte**_

___ the dance of forces round a centre where  
_

Liang Zhu, their only daughter still living with them at that point of time, must have called her mother because Sally had been home much earlier than normal. She had found him in their living room that day, pacing mindlessly back and forth.

It had taken her nearly two hours to extract from him that Heero Yuy's mangled and broken body had been found in a dumpster in a back alley of Mars City. He had been tortured to death, but the Perfect Soldier must have held his silence because 'Mad Max' had never been compromised.

His sacrifice had not been in vain as it had allowed Preventers to clip the MLF's claws and pull their teeth. Just before he had been caught, Heero had transmitted a batch of information that was enough to get many MLF-members convicted in front of a judge, and his death had given Preventers a valid reason for busting several of MLF's strongholds.

His funeral had been very short, not many people invited. Only the remaining ex-pilots, Sally, Une, and a few other Preventers Agents had come. Heero Yuy had been buried almost as lonely as he had died.

The scrambled eggs are a nuisance, tasting bland and glibbery, sliding off his trembling fork almost as soon as he lifts it away from the plate. He has long ago lost his hunger, but he is still eating. He does not know why; perhaps because it has become a habit. Seven o'clock breakfast, 12 o'clock lunch, and six o'clock dinner. Go to bed at ten, wake up at six.

For a long time, he has been following this schedule, going through the required motions without thinking about them.

Two years after Heero's death, Duo had followed him. What was that last line of a poem he had heard somewhere? 'Not with a bang but a whimper'? Duo had certainly been the 'bang', and a damn big one at that.

A mission gone bad. Bullets had started flying when the terrorists refused to hand over a shuttle with several colony representatives. Negotiations had seemed to be successful in their task of distracting the terrorists long enough for an infiltration team to get the hostages out of that shuttle. Unfortunately though, the perpetrators had wired a small bomb to the shuttle's fuel tanks, and Duo had stumbled upon it almost by accident. As it was too great a danger to the hostages' lives, he had tried to disarm it. He had still been busy with it when the terrorists had detonated it. There had not been enough left of Duo Maxwell to put into a casket.

_** In der betäubt ein großer Wille steht**_

___ some mighty will stands paralyticly.  
_

„Mr. Chang? How are you feeling today?"

Is it already time for the doctor's visit? Where has the last of his breakfast gone? Has the nurse already come in and helped him dress? Apparently, he has taken his medication, too, because there is a bland aftertaste lingering on the roof of his mouth.

Sometimes, when he remembers something especially vivid, time seems to jump in strange intervals. It can be minutes, it can be hours. It could even be days, but as all days pass in a monotonous blend, he's not sure. Those time lapses have become longer, more frequent over the last years. In the same measure, his nightmares have reduced.

Trowa had been the third one to die. Ironic that death followed their designations as Gundam pilots, taking them in the same order they had fought in the war. Trowa had worked in the circus until the end, when he had taken a bad fall from the tight rope. His partner in the number had lost his balance during practice, and as Trowa had been perched on his shoulders, he had never had a chance of grabbing the rope. He hadn't had enough time to turn his body around in the air and had fallen head first into the security net. Enough bones had been broken that his spinal cord had been severed between the third and fourth cervical vertebra, making him go into cardiac arrest. A long time before the paramedics arrived, he had been dead.

Cool, professional fingers are stretching and flexing his arms, trying to judge the resistance of his stiff and uncooperative muscles. His hand is held out to observe the tremors running through it. Apparently, his condition is not worse than yesterday and the day before, but he is not better, either.

Quatre's death had been suicide, according to the coroner. True, Trowa's death had been heartbreaking for Quatre, and he had fallen into a depression almost immediately. However; Quatre would have said something or at least hinted at it if he had chosen to end it. And Quatre would never have done it by overdosing on sleeping pills. It would have been too unsafe as he'd had a high resistance to several kinds of barbiturates. The risk of waking up again would have been too great. But there had been absolutely no indications of a struggle or any other form of violence. It was just something Wufei felt in his guts. However; gut feelings hardly qualified as evidence, so Quatre Raberba Winner had committed suicide one year after Trowa Baron's death.

"Are you in pain, Mr. Chang?"

_** Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille**_

___ Just now and then the pupils' noiseless shutter  
_

He looks at the doctor as steadily as he can through the shaking and trembling of his limbs. Pain has always been a steady constant in his life, sometimes waxing, sometimes waning, but always undeniably there. He can remember only a few handfuls of times when he was completely without, all of them in Sally's arms. And he does not want anything to taint those precious moments, so he jerkily shakes his head no. The doctor doesn't seem to believe him but has no other choice than to accept the statement.

The doctor turns to the nurse. "Has he said anything?"

"No."

A sigh from the doctor. "Well, if he does, please inform me immediately."

Why is it so important that he talks? He has managed quite well so far. And Sally always understood him, always knew what was wrong with him without him having to say it out loud. He knows that it is unfair to compare the nursing staff to his wife, but sometimes, he can't help it.

Tiredly, he stares ahead of him, seeing but not realizing that the doctor has left. His mind is too far gone in memories to still perceive reality. In his mind, he relives the happy days, when he was married to Sally, when all five of them were still alive, when his limbs were so steady that he was one of Preventers' best shooters.

They were happy days despite the frequent nightmares that woke him drenched in sweat, biting back on a scream until his teeth hurt. Those dreams have almost vanished over the years, but now, he almost welcomes those rare instances when he wakes trembling not from his decease but from memories painted in fire, blood, and agony. He cherishes those moments because they tell him that he is still alive in this dead monotonousness of days, weeks and months.

"Mr. Chang?"

_** sich lautlos auf. – Dann geht ein Bild hinein**_

___ is lifted. - Then an image will indart,  
_

He looks up from the table he is seated at. Judging from the used and dirty plastic plates all around him, lunch has just finished. The other residents of the nursing home are chatting with each other, speaking of the good times long past and complaining about youth today that has no manners. The room is not too big, just enough to fit two rather large tables with twenty something people in there. Lunch always is a social event, time for the residents of this floor to meet and converse. Many of them are in wheelchairs, most because of geriatric ailments or after-effects of a stroke.

"Mr. Chang?"

Finally, his eyes focus on the nurse who has appeared besides his chair as usual when he is finished with his food. Something in her voice though is different today, something that has made him listen up. He can feel the eyes of those around him on him and the nurse, watching what is going on with rapt attention.

Every one of them is very keen on catching the latest gossip because there is not much else to amuse themselves with in this nursing home. The nurse looks concerned. Concerned for him?

"Mr. Chang, please come with me.

She helps him get up, helping him shove his chair away as soon as he is standing. Grabbing his cane almost absently, he shuffles slowly and painfully after the nurse who is waiting for him every few steps. Gradually, they make their way to the elevator that takes them down to the first floor, right into the entrance lounge.

It has been a very long time since he has last seen the comfortable couches that are arranged in several small seating groups to grant an illusion of privacy. Time in this building goes differently, but he thinks it has been at least several months since the last time he has been in the entrance lounge. Mei Lan and Liang Zhu have always visited him in his room or in the gardens behind the nursing home. Now, there are two men in black suits with black ties sitting on one of the couches.

When the nurse gets out of the elevator before him, the men snap to attention and get up to great them. Both of them have Asian features, and both of them look like they are in their thirties or forties. The nurse introduces him.

"This is Chang Wufei. You wanted to talk to him?"

_** Geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille**_

___ down through the limbs' intensive stillness flutter,  
_

The slightly taller man nods towards the nurse, then both of them turn towards him. They bow deeply, giving him a respect he has seldomly experienced before. Trembling, he bows back, his stiff muscles and bones protesting at him giving them the full traditional answer to their reverence. The nurse just looks uncomfortable from one to the other, not quite knowing what is happening. He thinks he knows what is going on, but he does not want to be proved true.

Taking a deep breath, the slightly younger one of them lowers his head slightly.

"Mr. Chang. We regret to inform you that your daughter Ling Mei Lan has perished in the aftermath of a severe brain thrombosis."

Dimly, he hears the nurse gasp and the two men give him their apologies, but he doesn't listen to them. His daughter was forty-nine years old, much older than he ever thought he would become, but still much younger than the average life expectancy.

The last time he saw her was for Christmas. She always insisted on celebrating with him although he does not believe in Christmas. She always brought him a little present, never anything useful, but still so much more than nothing at all. Those times are the ones that have interrupted his dreary everyday life with small sparks of something akin to happiness.

He does not bother to ask after the justice of the event. He has long ago given that up. He is just glad that she has not suffered very much. Her three children are in their early twenties, all of them having left home for prestigious universities. They are going to miss her but they are not dependant on her anymore.

Mei Lan was his first child, named after the loud, vicious girl he had been married to several life-times ago. Mei Lan was not as competitive as Meiran had been, but otherwise, she had done his Nataku honor. She had inherited his face and Sally's eyes, his stubbornness and Sally's talent for making him do things he never wanted to do.

And now, she is only one more name to add to the list of those he has survived.

_** Und hört im Herzen auf zu sein.**_

___ and end its being in the heart._

Turning his back on them, he slowly shuffles back to the elevator, not listening to their concerned compassion. He knows that his behaviour is well beyond rude, but at the moment, he does not care. They don't know what surviving means. They don't know what it means gradually becoming caught in a body that does not want to obey anymore. They don't know what it means looking through trembling and twitching flesh only to see healthier people die all around him. They don't know…

Tiredly, he presses the button that will bring him back to his floor, to his room. He lost his chance at ending it when he had decided against it in favour of his wife Sally. Now it is too late. His body has been failing too much to give him the possibility of doing it himself, and he does not want to burden anybody's consciousness with such a task. He has been waiting for so long that a few years would not matter anymore.

He passes by the lunch room on his way to his room, seeing all the others watch him through the glass door. Somewhere behind him, he hears the nurse hurrying to catch up with him. He knows he cannot outrun her in his state, so he does not even try.

"Mr. Chang?"

He merely keeps his more or less steady pace, shuffling through the hallways towards his room.

"Mr. Chang, please say something."

He halts in the middle of the doorway to catch his breath and slowly turns around to look at the nurse through his shaggy grey hair that threatens to fall into his eyes. She looks concerned for him, but he knows it is nothing more than a professional concern. It is nothing more than a job for her. He does not condemn her because he knows how hard such a job is on a person. And he does not begrudge her this kind of work.

She wants to come closer, but something she can read in his body language actually makes her stay away. Those coal black eyes that usually are clouded with memories have her in an astonishingly clear focus for a few split-seconds, then they become hazy once again. How much does he still perceive of reality? She could have sworn that he has seen more in those few split-seconds than she sees in a whole day, but she is not sure how much of it he has actually registered.

"Mr. Chang?"

He is still looking at her, the old man with the body rattled by tremors and twitches. The old man who has been living with Parkinson for the past twenty years. The old man who has been mute for the past three years. The old man who has made history at the tender age of fifteen. The old man who has survived his wife, his daughter, and all his friends.

And then, when he turns away from her, she sees a single drop of water fall from his cheek.

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**A/N:**

Comments/ Tips/ Reviews very appreciated. If I got any details of Parkinson wrong, please tell me.

Until the next story.

_Sakiku_


End file.
